Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-04-15

the cloak of flesh and the wrappings with
which we meet the storms of this world. At
the close OF an earthly reception, under the
brush and broom of the porter the coat or
hat may be handed to us better than when we
resigned it, and the cloak of humanity VIII
finally be returned to us improved and bright
ened and purified and glorifed.
You and do not want our bodies returned
as they are now. We want to get rid of all
their weaknesses and all their susceptibilities
to fatigue and all their slowness of locomo-
ton They will be put through a chemistry
of soil and heat and cold and changing seasons
out of which God will reconstruct them as
much better than they are now as the body
of the rosiest and healthiest child that bounds
over the lawn at Prospect park is better than
the sickest patient in Bellevue hospital. But
as to our soul, we will cross right over, not
waiting for obsequies, independent of obit-
uar.y, into a state in every way better, with
wider room ind velocities beyond computa-
ton; the dullest of us into companionshlp
with the very best spirits in their very best
mood. in the very parlor of the universe, the
four walls FURNISHED and panelled and pict-
ured and glori6ed with all the splendors that
the infinite God in all the ages has been
able to invent. Victory!
This view, of course, makes it of but little
importance whether we are cremated or
sepultured. If the latter is dust to dust the
former is ashes to ashes. If any prefer in
cineration let them have it without carica-
ture The world may become so crowded
that cremation may be universally adopted
by law as well as by general consent Many
of the mightiest and best spirits have gone
through this process. Thousands and tens of
,Ic Of lob chi how hooy,
mated-P. P Bliss and wife, the evangelistic
singers, cremated by accident at Ashtabula
bridge; John Rodgers, cremated by persecu-
ton; Latimer and Ridley, cremated at Ok
ford; Pothinus and Blandina, a slave, and
Alexander, physician and their comrades,
cremated at the order of Marcus Aurelius-
at least 100000 of Christ's disciples cremated,
and there can be no doubt about the resurrec-
ton of their bodies. If the world lasts as
much longer as it has already been built
there perhaps may be no room for the large
acreage set apart for the resting places, but
that time has not come. Plenty of room yet,
and the race need not pass that bridge of fire
until it comes to it. The most of us prefer
the old way. But whether out of natural dis
Indignation or cremation we shall get that
luminous, buoyant, gladstone, transcendent,
magnificent, inexplicable structure called
the resurrection body; you will have
it, I will have it. I say to you to-
day, as Paul said to Agrippa: why should
it be thought a thing incredible with you
that God should raise the deadg' The far up
cloud, higher than the hawk flies, higher than
the eagle flies, what is it made of? Drops of
water from the Hudson, other drops from the
East river other drops from stagnant pool
out on Newark fats-up yonder there, en-
bodied in cloud and the sun kindles it. If
God can make such lustrous cloud out of
water drops, many of them soiled and impure
and fetched from miles away, can he not
transport the fragments of human body
from the earth, and out of them build a
radiant body? Cannot God, who owns all
the material out of which bones and muscle
and flesh are made, set them up again if they
have fallen? If manufacturer of telescopes
drop telescope on the floor and it breaks,
can he not mend it again so you can see
through it? And if God drops the human
eye into the dust, the eye which he originally
fashioned, can he not restore its Ay, if the
manufacturer of the telescope by a change of
the glass and change of the focus can make
better glass than that which was originally
constructed, and actually inproveit it, do you
not think the fashioner of the human eye
natural eye by the thousandfoid additional
forces of the resurrection eyes
'Why should it be thought with you an in
credible thing that God should raise the dead2"
Things all around us suggest it. Out of what
grew all these flowers? Out of the mold and
the earth Resurrected! Resurrected! The
radiant butterfly, where did it come from?
The loathsome caterpillar That albatross
that smites the tempest with its wing, where
did it come from? A senseless she'll Near
Bergerac, France, in Celtic tomb under
block were found flower seed that had been
buried 1000 years. The explorer took the
flower seed and planted it, and it came up, it
bloomed in bluebell and heliotrope. Two thou
sand years ago buried, yet fesulrecJed A
traveller says he found in mummy pit in
Egypt garden peas that had been buried there
5000 years ago. He brought them out and
on June 4, 1914, he planted them, and in
thirty days they sprang up. Buried 5000
years yet resurrected. "Why should it be
thought thing Incredible with you that God
should raise the dead?"
Where did all this silk come from-the silk
that adorns your person and your homes? In
the hollow of a staff Greek missionary
brought from China to Europe the progenitors
of those worms that now supply the silk
markets of many. nations. The pageantry of
hammered host and the luxurious articles of
commercial emporium blazing out from the
silk worms. And who shall be surprised if
out OF this Insignificant earthly body, this III
significant earthly life, our bodies unfold into
something worthy of the coming eterntiess
Putsilver into diluted inter and it dissolpFes.
Is the silver gone forever? No. Put in some
pieces of copper and the silver reappeeTs. IT
e.,
"Why should it be thought a thing incredi-
bic with you that God should raise the deadw
The insects flew and the worrns crawied last
autumn feebler and feebler, and then stopped.
They have taken no food they want none.
They lay dormant and izlsensible, but soon the
south wind will s1low6he resurrection trum-
pet, and the air ar,'SssIe earth will be full of
them. Do you nsA mink that Cod can do as
much fol-. our loo&ses as ne does for the wasps
and the spiders and the snaiis2 This morning
at 4:30 o'cll X there was resurrection. Out
of the nis'1t he day In a few weeks there
will be- o surrection in all our gardens.
WHY not some day a resurrection amid all
the gravess
Eyer and anon there are instances of men
and women entranced.
A trance is death followed by resurrection
after few days; total suspension of mental
power and voluntary action. Rev. William
Tennent, great evangelist Of the last gener-
ton, of whom DR.. Archibald Alexander, a
man far from being sentimental, wrote in
most eulogistic terms-Rev. William Tennent
seemed to die. His spirit departed. People
came in day after day and said:
"He is dead, he is dead" But the soul that
fed returned, and William Tennept lived to
write out the experiences of what he had seen
while his soul was gone. 1t may be found
some time that what is called suspended ami
| nation or comatose state is brief death. Civ
ing the soul an excursion into the next world
from which it comes back, a furlough of
few hours granted from the conflict Of life to
which it must return. Do not this waking
up of men from trance, and this waking up
of insects from winter ifelessness, and this
waking up of grains buried 5000 years ago,
| make it easier for you to believe that your
| body and mine after the vacation of the
grave shall rouse and rally, though there
| be 5000 years between our last breath
| and the sounding of the archahgelic reveille?
Psychologists tell us that while the most of
our bodies are built with such wonderful
economy that we can spare nothing, and the